The Start of a Beautiful Interrogation
by Niente Zero
Summary: Oops! Why is the mysterious new Russian agent breaking into Solo's office? What's Solo going to do about that? And what on earth is Napoleon doing at work when he's supposed to be on a hot date with a girl from the secretarial pool?


**A quick and dirty (but not really that dirty) story for Lothithil. This occurs pre-series. If later canon contradicts anything, I plead that certain members of the household are making me ration the box set so I'm still in the dark past mid-season 2.**

"Ahem. This is a little awkward."

Napoleon Solo's voice was as dry as his aim was steady. He stood in the door to his office in U.N.C.L.E headquarters with his Special covering the darkly-clad intruder who was rifling through his desk drawer. Solo was supposed to be at dinner with Marlee from the secretarial pool, but the date was a wash. It was only nine o'clock, and she'd already gone home in a taxi to her parents' home in the suburbs to beat her early curfew. Napoleon had decided that he might as well take the early night to finish up some paperwork.

"I suppose you might call it awkward."

The intruder straightened up. Napoleon had recognized him immediately. The slender blond man in front of him was fresh from Survival School. Before Survival School, rumour placed him in the Russian Navy, and further scuttlebutt held that it was almost certain that he was and had always been KGB. Napoleon treated rumours like that with a hefty dose of salt. After all, if everything that had been said about HIM was true, well. Some of that wasn't even physically possible. The Old Man had a good eye for Section Two agents. Napoleon wasn't prepared to outright trust the Russian, but he would, and did, stake his life on Waverly's judgment.

It was a pity to be proven wrong this way. But it looked as if he'd caught Illya Kuryakin red-handed in a very clumsy act of espionage.

"Would you like to explain what you're doing here, or shall we move on along to Interrogation?"

Napoleon had to give Kuryakin credit. The Russian didn't seem to turn a hair at the prospect of facing U.N.C.L.E's formidable information-gathering forces. He did have the sense to have his hands in clear view and away from his body. It wasn't quite a posture of surrender, it was just enough to prevent him from getting shot. Solo didn't prefer to shoot his fellow agents. He'd use a sleeper cartridge if he had to.

"I should like to explain, but I'm not at liberty to." The Russian said.

Solo frowned slightly.

"Step away from the desk." he said. "I don't have to tell you that this is quite a serious matter."

"Quite. So if you'd get on with it." Kuryakin said with a touch of impatience.

Napoleon stepped over to the desk, keeping Kuryakin covered. He lifted the papers that Kuryakin had been handling. His eyebrow raised. Rather than seeing anything missing, there were new documents pertaining to an affair that he had not been briefed on interleaved with the paperwork that he'd been returning to the office to handle. Very mysterious. Was the Russian trying to send him on a wild goose chase?

Solo had yet to work with Kuryakin. The new agent was being farmed around to fill in when other agents' partners were ill or injured. Mostly injured. Solo didn't habitually work with a partner so it hadn't come up. He was having a hard time reading the poker-faced young man in front of him who by all rights should appear at least a little nervous.

Was he not nervous because his position was defensible, or was he, as word went around the building, made of nerves of ice? The only way to find out was through interrogation.

"Come on then. You know the old routine. Walk ahead of me. Not too close now." Napoleon gestured with his Special.

The line of the Russian's back was tense under the fabric of his cheap suit. Napoleon was relieved to see some sign of a normal reaction from Kuryakin. The man's quiet, almost arrogant tranquility about the mess that he found himself in was unnerving. Napoleon directed Illya through the building to the interrogation suite, unsure if the new agent knew the way, but also needing to control the situation.

"In there." Solo said. He was done with niceties, distancing himself necessarily from the man who he would question.

"I'll make myself comfortable." Illya said. It was clear now that he had seen the interrogation suite before. He sat at the table in one of the rooms, placing his hands to be restrained as was the usual practice. The sort of men and occasionally women who were questioned in these rooms meant that caution was paramount.

Napoleon pressed the button on the wall that made automatic restraints slide out over Kuryakin's wrists, effectively pinning him to the table without causing any physical harm. A second button started a barrage of lights and hypnotically whirling spirals on a screen behind the interrogator's chair. The U.N.C.L.E scientists had implemented an array of technical tricks to disorient the subject of questioning and make his mind more malleable to the usual psychological practices of the well trained interrogator.

Napoleon Solo was an excellently trained interrogator.

Before he started on his line of questioning, Solo stepped out of the room and used his communicator to contact the head of Section One, Mr. Waverly. He was unable to raise the gentleman in question. Napoleon considered that Waverly might well be in a vital dinner meeting. He activated his communicator again and left a message with the U.N.C.L.E switchboard to have Waverly contact him as soon as possible.

Solo wavered briefly before returning to the interrogation room. Perhaps he should wait for Waverly before questioning Kuryakin. On the other hand, Solo hadn't risen through the ranks by doubting his instincts. His instincts told him there was something fishy about how calm and untroubled Kuryakin seemed to be.

"Am I to sit around all night, or do you have questions for me?" Kuryakin asked, his tone firmly stepping across the line into insolence as Solo re-entered the room.

"I wouldn't be so eager to face my questions, Kuryakin." Solo said, taking a seat.

"What were you doing in my office?" he began.

"I can't answer that."

"Who do you work for?"

"The United Network Command for Law and Enforcement, otherwise known as U.N.C.L.E."

"Come on now, you know what I mean." Solo said. "Who gave you orders to break into my office."

"I cannot say."

"Who are you working for?"

"I told you, the U.N.C.L.E."

"Kuryakin, I can promise you, this will go easier on you if you come clean." Solo said, leaning on his charm a bit, bringing a sympathetic expression to his face. It wouldn't go much easier, but it wasn't unheard of for the Soviets to coerce their people overseas. If Kuryakin could plead that he'd been threatened, or his family had, he might get life in prison for espionage rather than a swift execution.

"I have nothing to come clean about." If anything, there was a glimmer of amusement in Illya's eyes at Napoleon's turn at good cop. Napoleon abandoned the strategy at once. Let the man hang himself, then.

An hour passed, an hour of relentless questions, the same questions bringing the same unperturbed refusal to clarify what Kuryakin had been doing and who had ordered him to do it. The flashing lights were bothering Solo, and he wasn't even looking directly into them. He could see a crease of a headache forming on Kuryakin's brow, a fine pucker right above the nose. Yet the man seemed no closer in any way to succumbing to the combination of hypnotic visualizations and the blunt battering ram of Solo's questioning. Solo couldn't help but admire Kuryakin's stubbornness even while regretting that the man was probably an enemy of U.N.C.L.E.

Another twenty minutes of questioning passed before the door opened from the outside and Mr. Waverly's voice was heard.

"Mr. Solo. A word with you if I may."

Solo stood, not unhappy to take a break from his onerous task. He stepped into the corridor.

"Somewhere a little more private, I think." Waverly said, leading Solo to a nearby empty office.

"Has Kuryakin said anything about what he was doing tonight?" Waverly asked as soon as the door was closed.

"No, sir. He just insists that he can't say who gave his orders." Napoleon grimaced. He hated having to admit that he'd failed to get any answers.

"That young man has rather a tendency to place duty over any sense of self-preservation whatever." Waverly said. He sounded actually smug about it. Napoleon supposed that made sense given that Waverly was prone to pronouncing agents entirely expendable.

"Is there something I should know, sir?" he asked cautiously.

"Yes, indeed there is." Waverly said. "There's no avoiding it now, I'm afraid. Kuryakin was acting under my orders tonight."

Napoleon's eyebrows rose suddenly and his mouth formed a small, startled 'o'.

"The global heads of Section One felt that in order to appraise you for your next advancement," Waverly gestured loosely, knowing that Solo would understand that he was referring to the role of Chief Enforcement Agent, "it would be prudent to put you to a test.

"I didn't agree with the overall consensus, but I didn't see any harm in it. Mr. Kuryakin has shown an aptitude for eluding security measures. A locked drawer nor desk would not stop him, nor would he be likely to leave evidence of his passing. Further, I thought it would do the lad good to be given a task that shows that he's trusted."

Waverly harrumphed a little at his admission of a soft spot, and moved on quickly from it.

"Kuryakin had autonomy to choose the time to infiltrate your office and leave you the, ah, scent trail that was to start the test. Apparently he was mistaken."

"Well, sir, I was..." Napoleon winced. Waverly never appreciated hearing the details of his love life.

"Something fell through." he said. "Kuryakin wasn't mistaken, I wasn't supposed to be in the office tonight."

"Since you now know of the proposed test, I will have to recommend that we don't repeat the experiment." Waverly said. "No point, none at all. I must ask you a question. Mr. Solo, think carefully before you answer."

Waverly's eyes were sharp on him, and Solo felt like this question was probably a more vital test than the trumped up affair that the other heads of Section One had devised.

"Sir?"

"Had the individual you found in your office tonight been anyone else, perhaps one of our Canadian or American colleagues, would you have reacted the same way?"

Napoleon didn't need to think for long. It wasn't that Illya was Russian, or that there were rumours questioning his loyalty. It was just that Napoleon had caught him red-handed breaking into a desk that contained sensitive papers. Napoleon knew he would have done the same things even if he'd caught an agent he liked and trusted going through his desk.

"I would have, sir. No question. I'm glad to know that there's an innocent explanation, although I don't understand why Kuryakin couldn't tell me himself."

"I had ordered him to disclose to no-one the nature of his task." Waverly said. "Apparently he is capable of following orders."

Napoleon suddenly started. While they were standing around talking, Illya was still restrained and under the effects of the interrogation room.

"Sir, in that case, I'd better go and release Kuryakin."

"Quite. I'll come with you." Waverly said.

As they got close to the room, Napoleon heard voices within. He pushed open the door and found two Section Two agents leaning over Illya. Apparently he'd interrupted them in the process of taunting the Russian.

"...always said you were a filthy little Commie rat. Wasn't surprised to hear you were down here. You finally stepped in it, and now they'll hang you, hang you by the neck 'til you're good and dead and you'll get a traitor's burial, unmarked, dumped like the trash you are."

Illya was looking at his tormentors with undisguised contempt on his face. There was a bruise on his cheek that looked like he'd been backhanded, but there was no sign that he'd struggled with the restraints on the table. Aside from the bruise and the crease on his brow from withstanding the nauseating lights, he looked completely unruffled. Knowing what he did now, Solo's admiration was wholehearted.

"That's quite enough!" Waverly snapped out. Solo hit the buttons shutting the effects in the room off, and releasing Kuryakin's hands. Kuryakin moved as if to rub one of his wrists and then stilled himself.

"Gentlemen. You will be coming with me for a private discussion." Waverly said to the two agents who had been harassing Kuryakin. "Mr. Solo, please take Mr. Kuryakin to the infirmary." If there was a glimmer of absolute smugness on his face as he issued that order, it passed too quickly for Napoleon to be certain he'd seen it. Solo had a feeling the Old Man was up to something. Something involving him and Kuryakin.

"Yes sir." Solo said, watching with a nasty smile as the two agents were led off for a thorough dressing down, the kind that only Waverly could administer.

"I appear to have grasped the wrong end of the stick." Napoleon said, holding his hand out to shake Illya's. "I'm sorry you went through that."

Illya shook the proffered hand and then stood. "No need." he said. "I'm aware that appearances were damning."

They left the interrogation room side by side. Napoleon began to head toward the infirmary.

"Mr. Solo, I really don't need medical care." Illya said.

"Call me Napoleon." Napoleon said. "Are you quite sure?"

Illya looked dizzy, nauseated and shaken, but otherwise quite well. To an Enforcement Agent, that was really nothing.

"I'm sure. I'm a little hungry, that's all." Illya said.

"And my dinner was some time ago." Solo said, changing direction. "Come on then, Mr. Kuryakin, I know a great little place where we can still get a chop and a bottle of claret at this time of night."

Illya didn't need to be asked twice.


End file.
